Refund limitation under Section 11B bars voluntary duty payments not made under protest from consequential refund treatment.

Refund of duty paid before a show cause notice was treated as an independent refund claim under Section 11B, not as a consequential refund arising automatically from the earlier Tribunal order. Because the duty had been deposited voluntarily and the assessee had not complied with the protest procedure under Rule 233B, the six-month limitation under Section 11B applied. The refund claim was therefore held to be time-barred and not maintainable as a consequential refund.

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Issues: Whether the refund claim for duty paid before the show cause notice was barred by limitation and could be treated as a consequential refund or as duty paid under protest.

Analysis: The refund was sought after the Tribunal had already held that no refund could be ordered in those proceedings and had remanded only for fresh consideration under Section 11B of the Central Excise Act, 1944. On the facts, the duty had been deposited voluntarily before the show cause notice, and the assessee had not followed the procedure required for payment under protest under Rule 233B of the Central Excise Rules, 1944. The authorities therefore applied the six-month limitation under Section 11B and treated the claim as an independent refund application rather than a consequential refund arising automatically from the earlier order.

Conclusion: The refund claim was rightly held to be time-barred and not maintainable as a consequential refund.

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